This invention relates generally to magnetic recording apparatus for recording and reproducing digital data by means of a multi-track head on and from a magnetic recording medium such as a magnetic tape, disc, drum or the like. Particularly, the present invention relates to a circuit arrangement and a method for controlling the operating state of each head in the multi-track head so as to reduce crosstalk between adjacent tracks.
Conventionally, when digital data is recorded on a magnetic recording medium, a magnetic head has been driven by a writing or recording signal having the same waveform as that of the digital signal. Recently a high-density magnetic multi-track head has been actualized by so called thin film magnetic head, and therefore it is now possible to record digial data at a high density on a magnetic recording meidum. However, since such a thin film magnetic head comprises less number of coil turns when compared with a conventional bulk head, it is necessary to drive a thin film magnetic head with a relatively large amount of recording current. Due to such large amount of recording current applied to a thin film magnetic head, and also due to high density such a high-density thin film head is apt to suffer from crosstalk between adjacent or close tracks.
Furthermore, such a high-density thin film multi-track head also suffers from a problem of peak shift, which is a phenomenon that the position of a peak of a reproducing signal, indicative of logic "1" or "0", is undesirably shifted from a position of high magnetic flux inversion density toward a position of low magnetic flux inversion density. Although various circuit arrangements have been devised hitherto for compensating for such peak shift, all the conventional arrangements suffer from complex circuit arrangement.